What Traders are Talking About:
* Corn planting pace slightly slower than expected. As of Sunday, USDA reported 28% of the U.S. corn crop was seeded, which was was slightly less than expected. At 28% complete, the corn seeding pace is now the third fastest for this date after being record-quick earlier. Cool, wet conditions have slowed corn seeding efforts in western and northern areas of the Corn Belt the past two weeks, while producers in the eastern Belt continue to make strong progress. Based on forecasts for the remainder of this week and next week, planting efforts will continue to be somewhat slowed in the western Belt. Meanwhile, soybean planting is record fast for this time of year at 6% complete.
The long and short of it: The corn planting pace is far from a concern, but it has backed off enough, especially in the western Belt, to ease talk that corn plantings will top USDA's March intentions of 95.9 million acres.
* Chinese corn buys confirmed?. USDA reported a daily corn sale of 480,000 MT for 2011-12 to an unknown destination this morning. This business in believed to be to China as it matches up closely with recent talk China bought 500,000 MT to 1 million MT of U.S. corn.
The long and short of it: Since the China demand talk is already "in" the market, this could trigger a "sell-the-fact" reaction, although supportive outside markets and talk China may be in the market for more U.S. corn make that unlikely.
* El Neutral into summer. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology says climate indicators across the tropical Pacific Ocean are neutral and will remain that way until at least early summer. The bureau says some, but not all, climate models note an increased chance of El Nino conditions developing this summer or fall.
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